The Cowboy SEAL's Triplets
Tina Leonard
Triple Trouble! When Daisy Donovan arrives in Bridesmaid Creek, she makes quite an entrance: on the back of a motorbike! The former bad girl is back… and ready to face irresistible former SEAL John Mathison, the father of her unborn baby boys.Commitment was never on the cards for John – but he can’t say he’s forgotten his night with beautiful Daisy. When she tells him she’s pregnant with his triplets, John realises he might be a family-man-in-waiting after all! Now, all he has to do is get Daisy to the altar – and be the hero his miraculous family deserves.
“It wasn’t my intention to rope you into a wedding.”
“Why didn’t you tell me you were expecting in the first place, Daisy? Why’d you leave?”
“I left because it was Crazy Town around here. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do.”
“It’s always Crazy Town. You can’t expect BC to change, Daisy.”
“I didn’t tell you, because you shouldn’t feel compelled to marry me. I don’t need a husband.”
“And yet, you’re going to have a husband.” John frowned at her. “Daisy Donovan, you’re going to marry me, next weekend as a matter of fact. Enough lollygagging and floating around. I’ve pursued you for years, and whether you want to admit it or not, you’ve enjoyed being the princess of my passion.”
She raised a brow. “I’m not getting married.”
The Cowboy
SEAL’s Triplets
Tina Leonard
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
TINA LEONARD is a USA TODAY bestselling and award-winning author of more than fifty projects, including several popular miniseries for the Mills & Boon
Cherish™ line. Known for bad-boy heroes and smart, adventurous heroines, her books have made the USA TODAY, Waldenbooks, Ingram and Nielsen BookScan bestseller lists. Born on a military base, Tina lived in many states before eventually marrying the boy who did her crayon printing for her in the first grade. You can visit her at www.tinaleonard.com (http://www.tinaleonard.com), and follow her on Facebook and Twitter.
For the many wonderful readers who so enthusiastically and kindly supported my work from day one—I thank you from the bottom of my heart.
Contents
Cover (#u7917f226-af24-5a20-8bea-cb2689aa71ff)
Introduction (#u760b5a85-dcbf-5113-8e99-2f362f938fba)
Title Page (#u9471c254-b6d8-5c78-a22b-7d80c8044d90)
About the Author (#u41afc38b-0397-5b67-bcd1-89e9bf91db9f)
Dedication (#u5887fe45-4016-5680-a533-94710c00fd4d)
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Epilogue
Extract (#litres_trial_promo)
Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)
Chapter One (#ua01bbaba-c527-59ec-90c5-d961eb3ffb97)
John Lopez “Squint” Mathison came roaring into town with Daisy Donovan on the back of his motorcycle, making all the good citizens of Bridesmaids Creek, Texas, buzz like bees in a beehive. The five men who were in love with Daisy—her gang, consisting of Carson Dare, Gabriel Conyers, Clint Shanahan, Red Holmes and Dig Bailey—followed behind them in a truck, with Daisy’s infamous motorcycle secured in the truck bed.
It was a very strange sight not to see Daisy riding her own bike. No one could remember ever seeing her on the back of someone else’s, and the gossip flew fast and thick.
Squint was ready to see the last of Daisy’s gang. And maybe even Daisy herself, despite the fact that she’d once possessed his heart and his romantic dreams.
What he’d been thinking, he wasn’t certain.
She was completely wild, as everyone in Bridesmaids Creek had always tried to warn him.
The trouble was, he’d made love to Daisy Donovan while they were in Montana, in a weak moment when he shouldn’t have let his stupid heart outstrip his good sense.
Making love to Daisy had been even more mind-bending than he could have ever imagined. Then the five Romeos had blown into Montana to retrieve their small-town wild child princess, and Squint had seen that they were—himself included—all dopes dangling after a prize they couldn’t win.
At that moment, he’d decided to come back to Bridesmaids Creek, check in on his buddies and shift off to the rodeo. After the rodeo, if his heart was still bleeding, he thought maybe he’d get a job teaching ROTC or something, somewhere far away. He’d make those decisions as soon as Valentine’s Day was past, although he couldn’t have said why Cupid’s Big Day was his marker for a quiet exit.
Daisy hopped off the bike as soon as he came to a stop in front of the main house at the Hanging H Ranch. “Thanks for the ride.”
“No problem.”
“It was great seeing the country from a motorcycle. No windows to block the view.” She shook her long, dark locks out of her helmet. “But it’s wonderful to be home.”
He nodded and headed into the kitchen to find his friends—the men that he could always count on to talk sense into him. Daisy followed, which was a surprise. Wherever Daisy went, so did her love-struck gang, so they came, too.
“I’m so glad to be back in BC,” Daisy said, and Squint started. “Montana is beautiful, but after a while, I began craving the comforts of small-town life.”
This was news to him. Squint wished he hadn’t fallen head, heels and heart for Daisy, and had put plenty of distance between him and her gang perching at the kitchen island. The gang gathered around the kitchen island, which had over the years become the communal gathering place and feed bag summit. No one ever knocked on the back door of the Hanging H; they just let themselves in.
If you weren’t family or friend, you rang the front doorbell—not a good sign in a small town where everyone knew everybody else, and their business. Ringing the front bell meant you were an outsider.
Robert Donovan, Daisy’s father, always rang the doorbell. Somehow his daughter had managed it so that she considered herself part of the backdoor squad. Very recently, indeed—and Squint wasn’t sure why his poor mushy heart suddenly wished he had his own back door that she could make herself at home through anytime she liked.
But he’d never been one for settling down, never had a “real” home that wasn’t on wheels, so he shoved that thought out of his brain, a useless organ that did little to assist him with rational thinking where Daisy was concerned. Out of habit, he shifted the Saint Michael medal he wore, trying to figure out his next move.
“I wonder where Mackenzie and Suz are?” Squint peered into the living room for the house’s owners and their husbands, Justin Morant and Cisco Grant—Frog to his friends, though his wife, Suz, had let everyone know that she wasn’t kissing a Frog, hence the Cisco. Squint was a nickname, too, given to him for his shooting skills, which were far better than Cupid’s as far as he was concerned. Maybe it was time for him, too, to change his moniker back to his real name. Was it more likely that Daisy would fall for “John” rather than “Squint”?
Suz had not been easy for Cisco to catch, but catch her he had, and they’d celebrated that love for a second time last Christmas Eve. This was February—and who would have thought that only two months after Cisco’s wedding, John would have made love to Daisy Donovan, the woman who drove everybody absolutely nuts in Bridesmaids Creek. And he hadn’t just done it once—she’d sneaked into his bed many times, all under cover of night.
He had been completely aware she wasn’t about to let a sign of their new relationship hit the public domain, especially not since she’d mooned after Cisco for months and months. John was aware that Daisy felt as if she was settling by making love to him, and not as in settling down—just settling. Making do.
He was done with that. He’d tried to “win” her fair and square, by Bridesmaids Creek standards, which meant either running the Best Man’s Fork, or swimming the Bridesmaids Creek swim in order to win the love of your life. This was a no-fail charm, according to BC legend. But Daisy’d had three chances at the magic, and no time had he ever won her. Apparently the magic didn’t work so well for him. A man had to push forward, even if his dreams were in ruins. He’d learned the hard way when he’d served in Afghanistan with Sam and Cisco that with life you have to keep going.
And he would keep going now. In fact, to make certain there were no more loose moments, he was making sure Daisy was parked here for good—then he was leaving town for the rodeo circuit. It was the only way. The second option would be to just cut out his heart and throw it to the wolves somewhere—that would end the pain of knowing that Daisy was only making time with him, even though she’d admitted that she’d never loved Cisco in the slightest. She’d only been after him to keep him from Suz.
Which hadn’t worked. Suz and Cisco now had darling twin girls, and the magic of Bridesmaids Creek had cast its happy spell on them.
“Ah, cookies,” Dig Bailey said. “It’s great to be home.”
John took that in without comment. The Hanging H had never been Dig’s home, and never would be.
I should have taken Daisy to her house, and left her and her gang behind. Then I could start to forget the colossal mistake I made when I fell into her sexy brown eyes the day I met her.
“I missed the cocoa,” Carson Dare said, helping himself to some that was staying warm in a heated pitcher.
John could barely think about cocoa. He tried hard not to watch Daisy settle her delicately shaped, feminine assets on a stool at the island. It was terribly difficult to keep his eyes off her.
The first time he’d ever seen Daisy Donovan—at times known as the Diva of Destruction of Bridesmaids Creek—he’d been captivated by her long dark hair spilling from her motorcycle helmet, her heart-shaped lips, big expresso eyes that practically bewitched his soul, never mind the short black leather skirt that swung when she walked. She’d been wearing black combat boots and her shapely legs had transfixed him, making his brain a pile of ham salad.
Life hadn’t changed a whole lot since then.
“Chocolate chip cake,” Clint Shanahan said, sighing happily as he helped himself to a piece.
Red Holmes joined him and cut a slice for himself. “There’s no place like home, just like Dorothy said.”
“Listen, you fellows should probably follow the yellow brick road right on out of here,” John said sourly. “I didn’t see a kitchen’s open sign on the back door.”
They all stared at him.
“We’re from this town,” Gabriel Conyers said. “We know when we’re welcome. Do you?”
Point well taken. John was the outsider, though employed at the Hanging H for the past three years.
“Besides which, you just want to get Daisy alone,” Carson said, “and we’ve determined amongst ourselves that we’re going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”
“True,” Dig agreed. “She may not choose us, but we’re not letting you weasel her, either.”
Too late, fellows, the weasel’s already been to the henhouse. Several times.
“I’m going to the bunkhouse.” Since Justin and Cisco weren’t here, it was highly likely they were there. Although John was a bit surprised that Suz and Mackenzie weren’t around with their plethora of babies. Between them, they had six now at the Hanging H—all girls destined to break young men’s hearts.
Something he knew too well about. John shoved his hat on his head, glared at Daisy’s gang, and without bothering to look at Daisy, went out the back door. Unable to stop himself, he went around to the front, his boots crunching through the snow piled around the front porch. He wanted just a moment to take in the house, maybe even take a photo on his phone—because he was about to leave forever. There was no point in waiting until V-Day, because Cupid’s Arrow Delivery Service wasn’t going to bring him an arrow with Daisy’s name on it. This was the only real home he’d ever known. Permanent home, to be more precise. When you’d grown up in a beat-up trailer following the rodeo from town to town, home didn’t feel as if it had a stationary place. His parents had raised three children that way, and they’d grown up fine.
He supposed he and Daisy, the daughter of the richest man in Bridesmaids Creek, didn’t have a whole lot of common ground, anyway—which was why she’d never particularly gone for him, except under cover of darkness. John’s father and his grandfather and his father before him had been clowns and barrel men, with the occasional bullfighter gig thrown into the mix. His mother was a cowboy preacher, her three boys sitting in the front pews without fail.
Maybe that was why the Hanging H meant so much to him. It was permanent. Well, it had almost not been permanent, thanks to Daisy and her greedy father, Robert. John raised his phone, snapping a photo of the snow-laden house. It was tall and white in Victorian splendor, its heavy gingerbread detail charming and old-world. Four tall turrets stretched to the sky, and the upstairs mullioned windows sparkled in the sunshine. The wide wraparound porch was painted sky blue, and a white wicker sofa with blue cushions beckoned visitors to sit and enjoy the view. A collection of wrought-iron roosters sat nearby in a welcoming clutch, and the bristly doormat with a big burgundy H announced the Hawthorne name, which Suz and Mackenzie had been before their marriages. Their parents had built this farm up years ago, as well as the business they’d started here—the Haunted H, a popular carnival and play place for families.
Nothing had changed, which was comforting. And Robert Donovan hadn’t managed to take over the Hanging H, though he and Daisy had given it plenty of effort.
Sometimes John felt as if he’d been in lust with the enemy. He was just so drawn to Daisy, it was as if all that bad-girl-calling vibe shook him down to his knees.
There’d been something of a happy ending, as recently as December, when Suz and Cisco had retied the knot. Robert Donovan had had some kind of epiphany, deciding that he didn’t want to be the town bully anymore, and sold the Hanging H back to Suz and Mackenzie for a dollar—though he’d moved heaven and hell to take over the property in the beginning.
Rumor had it that Daisy had turned, deciding she was no longer going to be the Diva of Destruction, and convinced her father—who was already developing a huge soft spot due to his newly acquired desire to be considered a beloved grandfather—that he didn’t want to be the town Grinch anymore.
John snapped one last photo, sighed at the memories of the only place that had ever felt like a true home to him, and put his phone away. Then he headed off without another look back, to return to the only other home he’d ever known.
A small trailer he’d recently heard was somewhere just outside of Santa Fe.
He’d be safe there—safe from his heart begging him to make love to Daisy anytime night fell to cover their sin.
* * *
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN, he just left?” Daisy hopped off her stool and ran to the window. Sure enough, there went Squint’s truck, hauling down the drive fast enough to make the truck bed lurch. A little concern jumped inside her, but then she calmed it. No doubt he’d just gone to grab a bite at The Wedding Diner. Or gone to see Madame and Monsieur Matchmaker—though now that they were divorced, perhaps it was fair to say that they were no longer Bridesmaids Creek’s special matchmakers. Daisy gulped. That split could probably be laid square at her and her father’s door, as they’d taken over the establishment where Madame Matchmaker’s Premier Matchmaking Services, and Monsieur Unmatchmaker’s Services, had once been housed. Now her gang had the space, and they’d put in a hopping cigar bar, sort of a pickup meet-and-get-sweet kind of place that doubled as a dating service and hangout.
There was no going back now.
Somehow she’d have to win the townspeople over, make up for a lot of the wrong she’d done. Daisy went back to sit with her gang, looking around at the five men who professed themselves in love with her.
“Listen, fellows. We’ve had a long, good run together.” Daisy took a deep breath. “But things are going to have to change.”
“Change?” Gabriel sat up. “What kind of change?”
There’d have to be lots of change if she was going to convince Bridesmaids Creek that she was a new woman. “Change. As much as possible.”
“I don’t like it.” Red shook his head. “We’ve got a great thing going, the six of us.”
Yes, but they didn’t know that she’d been diving under the sheets with Squint. And the lovemaking was fantastic. Mind-blowing. Once she’d gotten through the smoke and haze of trying to keep Suz and Cisco apart—what had she been thinking?—she’d realized the hunky, tall, saddle-brown-eyed Squint was a really sexy guy. Supersexy, to the point of being mouthwatering. And when he kissed her, she melted. Like a puddle of snow in hot sun. “It can’t be the six of us anymore.”
They looked alarmed. “But we’re so good together,” Carson said.
She shook her head. “Actually, we’re not. We were the misfits and outcasts together. But that’s not what I want to be anymore.”
“Whoa,” Clint said. “It’s Squint, isn’t it? John Lopez Mathison is getting inside your head.”
Daisy jumped. “Of course not!”
“It was Branch Winters,” Dig said darkly. “Every time you go to Montana to his retreat, you change. That was when it started, when you went chasing up there after Cisco. You came home different.”
“Yeah,” Red said. “You came home not mooning after Cisco anymore. And not really wanting to hang out with us, either.”
Daisy got up. They were right, of course. Branch’s place in Montana was a spiritual retreat where warriors of all kinds went to reboot. She’d gone to throw a few wrenches into Cisco’s works—and found a few thrown in hers instead. It was hard to explain Branch. He sort of lived on the metaphysical, and sometimes hippie, edge of life—but he’d helped her see that she was operating out of fear of never belonging in Bridesmaids Creek.
And only she could change that.
“It’s going to be okay, for all of us,” Daisy said softly, going to the door. “But change is in the wind. It has to be.”
She went outside into the cold February chill, knowing this was the right path—if she was ever going to make John Lopez “Squint” Mathison believe that it was him with whom she’d been in love all along.
She didn’t know if there was enough magic in Bridesmaids Creek to convince him, but she had to try.
Chapter Two (#ua01bbaba-c527-59ec-90c5-d961eb3ffb97)
Daisy felt every eye on her as she walked into The Wedding Diner the next morning. She was aware the town didn’t have a very high opinion of her, even though she’d managed to convince her father to give up pursuing the Hanging H, and even though she’d talked him into giving up on taking over the land where the Best Man’s Fork and Bridesmaids Creek lay in sleepy, small-town fashion. The Hawthorne’s Haunted H amusement park for kiddies was now situated on some land near Bridesmaids Creek, because Daisy had convinced the Hawthorne sisters that no one could take over their home and their business all at once if they weren’t tied together. Now the year-round haunted house was more of a community venture, which helped everyone in BC, because it was more centrally located, and people were assigned regular hours to run it. It was more lucrative for the town now, and with time, Daisy thought that its popularity would only grow.
But memories were long in BC, and she’d done an awful lot of bad. She smiled at everyone who turned to stare at her, and moved into a white vinyl booth that Jane Chatham, who owned The Wedding Diner, showed her to.
“You’re back,” Jane said, and Daisy nodded.
“We came back yesterday, Squint, myself and the boys.”
Jane’s gaze was steady on her. “Squint left town last night.”
Daisy blinked. “Left town?”
The older woman hesitated, then sat across from her. Cosette Lafleur—Madame Matchmaker herself—slid in next to Jane, her pink-frosted hair accentuating her all-knowing eyes.
Daisy’s heart sank. “He couldn’t have left.” He hadn’t said goodbye, hadn’t even mentioned he was planning to make like a stiff breeze and blow away.
The women stared at her with interest.
“Did you want him to stay, Daisy?” Jane asked.
“Well—” Daisy began, not knowing how to say that she’d thought she at least rated a “goodbye” considering she’d gotten quite in the habit of enjoying a nocturnal meeting in his arms. “It would have been nice.”
“Have you finally realized where your heart belongs, Daisy?” Cosette asked, and Daisy started.
“My heart?” How was it that these women always seemed to read everyone’s mind? A girl had to be very careful to keep her secrets tight to her chest. “Squint and I are friends.”
Cosette winked at her, and a spark of hope lit inside Daisy that maybe Cosette wasn’t horribly angry or holding a grudge with her about the whole taking-over-her-shop mistake she’d made.
“We know all about those kinds of friends,” Cosette said, nodding wisely.
“Still,” Jane said, “it does seem rather heartless of John to leave without telling you. Had you quarreled?”
Here it came, the well-meaning BC interference of which many suffered, all secretly cherished and she’d never had the benefit of experiencing. She had to say it was like being under a probing yet somehow friendly microscope. “We didn’t quarrel.”
“But you’re in love with him,” Cosette said.
“That may be putting it a bit—” Her words trailed off.
“Mildly?” Jane asked.
“Lightly?” Cosette said. “You are in fact head over heels in love with him?”
Daisy felt herself blush under all the scrutiny. Sheriff Dennis McAdams slid into the booth next to her, and the ladies wasted no time filling in the sheriff, who turned his curious gaze to her.
“He left last night,” the sheriff said, and Daisy wondered if John Lopez Mathison had stopped by to see every single denizen of this town to say goodbye—except for her.
“Yes, I’ve heard,” Daisy said.
“Not coming back, either,” the sheriff continued. “Jane, can I get some of your delicious double-dipped chicken-fried steak and mashed red potatoes with gravy? Maybe chase it with a slice of your four-layer chocolate cake?”
“Gracious,” Cosette said, “are you looking to have a four-alarm cardiac event, Dennis?”
“Just hungry, ladies.” He pushed back his worn Stetson with a grin. “Sitting up late at night with the fellows, having a good gossip and four-tissue wheeze gives a man an appetite.”
Jane eyed him with great curiosity. “A four-tissue wheeze requires a slice of four-layer chocolate cake?”
“Yes, ma’am.” Dennis nodded. “Squint was really working on my ear holes. As were Sam, Phillipe and Robert Donovan.”
“I don’t believe a word of it,” Cosette said. “I can’t see you five ever getting together for a rooster session.”
“It happened,” Dennis said cheerfully. “The first order of business was Squint requesting that we call him John from here on. After all, Squint was his military name, and he’s gone back to being a cowboy. So, John it is. But the big news of the evening was Robert Donovan announcing he feels greatly that his daughter, our Daisy here,” he said, winking at Daisy, “needs a man.”
“What?” Daisy shook her head. “My father would never say such a thing. I’m with Cosette. This gathering never took place.”
“He wants a man to settle you here in town, far away from the influence of whatever is happening in Montana,” Dennis continued, untroubled by the ladies’ disbelief. “And I said there was no such man to do the job in this small town.”
“And?” Jane demanded, not leaving to put in the sheriff’s order, Daisy noticed. When the gossip was flying hot and steamy, food took a backseat. “What was said to Robert’s grand pronouncement?”
Dennis shrugged, very much enjoying being the center of the ladies’ attention. “John said he agreed with me, and—”
“What?” Daisy stiffened. “How dare he?”
They all looked at her.
“How dare he, what, dear?” Jane asked.
“How dare John agree with my father?” Daisy thought the former Squint Mathison might have reached a new level of annoying.
“Most folks rather agree with Robert,” Cosette said, nodding.
“So what happened then?” Jane demanded.
“Could you put my order in before I tell you the rest?” Dennis asked, rubbing his stomach regretfully. “I didn’t have breakfast.”
“Sing for your supper, Sheriff,” Jane shot back.
“Well, I was pretty proud of my two cents, I don’t mind saying,” Dennis said. “And then Sam said that he didn’t think even he had the necessary talent to pull off the job.”
“What job?” Daisy asked, her heart beginning an emergency tattoo. It sounded as if all the important men in her life—notwithstanding Sam Barr, otherwise known as Handsome Sam, and understood by all to be a trickster and prankster beyond compare—had clubbed together and cast her to the wind. “Pardon me, but I’m having great trouble seeing my father and my...my—”
“Your what, dear?” Jane Chatham asked, her eyes twinkling with interest.
“My...good friend John,” Daisy said, covering herself. “I have trouble seeing the two of them agreeing on anything, but certainly my father wouldn’t spend any time discussing my love life with my—”
“With your good friend John,” Cosette said. “Yes, yes, yes, we heard all that.”
“And yet, it happened,” Sheriff Dennis said. “Now may I have that supper for which I sang like a many-feathered bird?”
“Not really,” Daisy said as Jane and Cosette nodded in agreement that the sheriff hadn’t quite imparted sufficiently satisfactory details. Daisy’s heart rate was still revving as she began to realize that the men had sold her out and the one she’d been spending delicious nights with had slipped out without saying a word to her. “What was the point of this male bonding?”
The sheriff smiled. “You know how it is when we fellows get together. We just hash out life, come to no solutions and feel like we’ve accomplished something.”
“A solution was achieved if John’s gone,” Daisy said.
“He is gone,” Dennis said. “Said something about returning to his home.”
“He doesn’t have a home,” Jane said, “other than the Hanging H, which is his home now.”
“Oh, he has a home,” Dennis said, “it’s just not one you and I would really think of as one. His is on the rodeo circuit.”
“All the men say that,” Cosette said, huffing out a breath impatiently. “They always claim rodeo is their hearth, heart and home.”
“In John’s case, it’s true.” Dennis looked wistfully toward the kitchen. “His family is now heading toward Santa Fe, apparently, hauling along the family domicile. Rather like a circus train, I suppose.”
“What in the world are you talking about?” Cosette demanded.
“John’s family follows the rodeo. That’s how they make their living.” Dennis shrugged. “His mom’s a cowboy preacher, and his dad and brothers are bullfighters and barrel men, going back generations. They’ve got a little motor home that they go from town to town in.”
“Rather a gypsy-ish lifestyle, isn’t it?” Jane asked, and Daisy’s heart sank. Just hearing this description of John’s home life made her realize that he might, conceivably, never darken the doors of Bridesmaids Creek again.
“Yep,” Dennis said, “and he’s not coming back. Not anytime soon, anyway.”
There was no way she could let that happen. Not after she’d finally come to her senses, after all the many moons of not realizing what a catch Squint—John—really was, hiding under all that brown-eyed, gentle bear exterior. Daisy swallowed hard, realizing the people sitting around the table were studying her, waiting silently for her to speak up.
Maybe it did serve her right to have John desert her for good after the many times he’d tried to win her. But she wasn’t the kind of woman who gave up—in fact, there were some who said that adversity only strengthened her will.
“You realize, Daisy, there won’t be a race run or a swim swum for you,” Jane said gently. “I’m afraid you threw away your three chances.”
“She didn’t throw them away,” Cosette said, her eyes softening as she looked at Daisy. Daisy felt this was very sweet of Cosette, especially as much of Cosette’s hard luck was Daisy’s fault. “She merely misplaced her three chances. Magic is never gone forever.”
Daisy paused. Of course. She was a Bridesmaids Creek girl, even if she’d come to town late, at the age of three. The magic would still work for her—it had to.
Because John made love to her like no man ever could, and it might have taken her way too long to realize it, but she knew in every corner of her heart that she was in love with him.
“I’m going to need help,” Daisy said softly. “I could really use some assistance in figuring out the right way to convince John that leaving Bridesmaids Creek wasn’t his best decision.”
They all took that in.
“We’re always here for one of our hometown girls,” Dennis said solemnly, and the ladies nodded, and Daisy felt warmed just by being designated a “hometown” girl. Maybe forgiveness was possible after all. She sure hoped so.
Now she just had to convince John that his home was here, and not the place where he’d grown up.
Rodeo.
* * *
JOHN FOUND HIS parents and brothers just outside of Santa Fe. Their small silver mobile home rumbled under turquoise-colored skies, with a truck—his brothers’—following closely behind. If not for cell phone contact, he would have missed them.
Mary and Mack Mathison waved at him as he pulled alongside their white truck, which hauled the silver Airstream mobile home they’d bought too many years ago for John to remember. His brothers Javier and Jackson saluted him, and he fell back into position, trailing behind the white truck lettered Mathison on both doors in black. Home sweet home.
This was it. He turned on some tunes, tried not to think about Daisy and told himself he was content to caravan as far away from Texas as possible.
“This could never have been her life,” John told the smiling bobblehead dog on his dash. “Daisy grew up with so much wealth, so much of everything, that she couldn’t possibly understand this kind of pared-down existence.”
The black-and-white bobblehead dog he’d named Joe, because it fit the J motif of his and his brothers’ names, neither agreed nor disagreed. In fact, Joe didn’t seem to be worried about much of anything other than the sunburn he was getting on his furry behind, courtesy of dash sitting. John watched the mountains of New Mexico fade away, thought about how beautiful it would be to see this highway on his motorcycle, with Daisy parked comfortably on the back, her arms around his waist, which she’d done all the way back from Montana. He got a woody just remembering her delicate arms around him, felt a dull hammer begin inside his skull.
“Holy Christmas,” John muttered. “I’m going to have to take up serious meditation to get her out of my head.”
He’d left his motorcycle in Bridesmaids Creek, under Sam’s care, with dire instructions that it was to be in the same beloved condition when he returned. Sam had agreed with a grin, saying smartly that of course it looked even better with Daisy polishing the seat, and would he mind—
“At which point I gave Sam such a glare that he shut clean up,” John told Joe, and Joe nodded in approval. Or maybe he didn’t nod in approval, but if he wasn’t nodding in approval, then what the hell good was a bobblehead dog to a man, anyway?
At the border connecting New Mexico and Colorado, his parents stopped the caravan at a roadside rest stop. He hadn’t expected them to stop so soon, as life on the road was about putting the miles between destinations. But they were more than happy to halt the train soon after he’d joined them, to welcome him back to the fold.
“What the hell, son?” Mack demanded, giving him a tight hug. “You took a year off my life showing up like that. I thought I’d seen a ghost.”
“Might as well be a ghost,” Mary said. “He hasn’t been around in four years.”
His brothers banged him on the back with enthusiasm. “We missed the hell out of you,” Javier said.
“We’ve been keeping Mack and Mary on the circuit,” Jackson said. “It’ll be good to have you back. You can help us keep them focused. They keep wanting to run off to New Zealand.”
“New Zealand?” John looked at his parents as they began checking over the ancient trailer. There was never much time for idle conversation. Everyone had their chores and responsibilities at each stop, where duties were parceled out and executed with a minimum of discussion. It was all business: check the equipment, use the facilities, stretch the legs and get back in the trucks.
As a child, John had carried along a soccer ball to kick with his brothers at the stops. He’d always wished they could stop long enough to have a real picnic at one of the shaded tables that usually graced a rest stop. On their birthdays, they did—but as a rule, the road was a demanding mistress, and must be gotten back to immediately.
“It’s my birthday,” he said suddenly, wanting his parents and brothers to cease their ant-like scurrying, and act as if him showing up in their midst after four years away was actually a big deal.
“Your birthday?” Mary frowned, thinking. “Is it?”
John nodded. “Yes.”
“Good heavens,” Mack said. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
“I’m a Navy SEAL,” John said. “I lean toward honesty.”
They stared at him, perplexed. “It’s just that we stay in our groove,” Mary said. “We don’t mean to seem uncaring.”
“I know.” John shrugged. “No big deal. Let’s sit down and have a water bottle or something. Talk.”
His parents took that in.
“All right, son,” Mack said after a long moment. “Javier, do we have any birthday cake in the trailer freezer?”
John sighed, remembering this well. Birthday cakes, of course, were kept in the freezer, for birthdays occurring on the road. No muss, no fuss. And nothing home baked. The boys had been homeschooled, too, which meant a rolling education. But Mary was smart, and they’d learned everything they needed to know to do very well on the standardized tests. At one point, young Javier had even decided he might want to attend college and had applied to Florida State, finding himself a very desirable candidate before he’d ultimately decided he preferred to stay with the family.
That was what happened: you spent your life on the road, and nothing else seemed as exciting.
They sat under one of the awnings at a concrete table. A couple of birds hopped near, wondering if the humans might drop any crumbs. Pity the bird that thinks it is getting crumbs from the Mathisons, John thought—feeling bad when Javier came out from the trailer triumphantly bearing five slices of cake, one of them anointed with a lit candle. Javier put this one in front of John, grinning. He whistled a long note, and his family all burst into the “Happy Birthday” song.
“Make a wish!” they exclaimed, so John blew out his candle—totally annoyed with himself when he realized that the image that flickered across his mind the instant he tried to think of what he’d wish for was Daisy’s beautiful face.
Before he’d had a chance to stop his brain, he’d wished she were here with him right now.
What a stupid wish.
Chapter Three (#ua01bbaba-c527-59ec-90c5-d961eb3ffb97)
John couldn’t have been more stunned when Sam’s truck pulled up beside the family trailer, but his brain seemed to separate into two parts when Daisy’s long-legged sexiness got out of the passenger side.
He shoved his cake with the birthday candle still smoking far away from him—clearly Bridesmaids Creek didn’t have the only claim to mystical mayhem—and got up to greet his friend. And the woman who drove him mad even in his sleep.
“What the hell, buddy?” John said to Sam, slapping the bearlike man on the back by way of embrace. Over Sam’s shoulder, John’s gaze was locked onto Daisy. She smiled, looking a trifle unsure of herself, which was unusual for Daisy. “What brings you two here?”
“Following you,” Sam said, then went to say hello to Mr. and Mrs. Mathison, and Javier and Jackson.
That left John staring at Daisy, drowning in her dark eyes. “Hi.”
She smiled. “Hello.”
“So, is somebody going to tell me what’s going on?” John asked.
“You left without saying goodbye.”
“How did you find me?”
“It wasn’t hard. You told the fellows exactly where you were headed. Sam said we’d just get in the truck and follow the smoke of your truck as you burned rubber out of BC.” She frowned. “How could you leave without saying goodbye? After...after we rode on your motorcycle all the way home from Montana?”
That was a nice way of saying How could you just leave like that after we’d made love like crazy? John sighed. “I’m sorry. I was probably a heel. Didn’t think it through.”
“I’d say you didn’t.” Daisy’s frown deepened, and he could tell she was really hurt.
“Daisy, look,” he began, “we just don’t suit. You know that.”
She stared at him silently.
“I mean, we suit sexually,” he said, lowering his voice, then pulled her farther from the group. His parents would be concerned about getting off schedule, but for the moment, they seemed happy to visit with Sam. Sam, of course, had helped himself to John’s slice of cake, casually flinging the candle in the trash. “What happened in Montana is best left in Montana.”
Daisy shook her head. “I don’t believe that’s really what you want.”
“Do you see my family, Daze?” He pointed to the trailer. “This is my life, and it’s as far away from Bridesmaids Creek and all that crazy magic as it could be. This is real life, this is the real John Lopez ‘Squint’ Mathison. I ain’t no Prince Charming, sweetheart.”
“I understand that you’re—that you’ve misunderstood what I need from a man after I chased Cisco, stupidly, of course,” Daisy began, but he shook his head.
“I don’t even think about that. I knew what was going on all along. I understood that you were just trying to fit in, and to find your own place in BC. But, Daisy, beautiful as you are, as desirable as you are, I’m not the man for you. I’m sorry.” He took a deep breath. “I’m really sorry that you came all this way having to listen to Sam’s hot air, too.”
“John,” Daisy began.
“I’m not going to turn into a handsome, secret prince like Cisco did.”
“Cisco’s from some kind of minor, minor royal lineage. And that’s not why I’m here!”
“But at the time, the idea of a title was dazzling to you, and this,” he said, gesturing to the beat-up trailer, “isn’t dazzling. It didn’t dazzle you then, and it’s not going to dazzle you now, but this is my family. This is our way of life.” He touched one of her long dark locks ruefully. “And I don’t think you’re exactly cut out for the migrant sort of life, princess.”
She moved his hand. “Thank you for your opinion, but I’m capable of figuring out what I want.”
“Because you knew what you wanted last year?” he asked, hating to be an ass but needing to make her see.
She stepped closer. “John, I know you care about me.”
“Always have, and part of me always will.” He moved away from her. “Trust me, Daisy, this would be an even bigger mistake than you and Cisco would have been.”
“I was never in love with Cisco. I never cared about him, not the way you think I did.” Daisy looked like tears might sprout any second, which was also a very unusual thing for the town’s ex-bad girl. “You and I belong together, John Mathison.”
He had to give her credit, being a daddy’s girl had taught her to go after what she wanted. Or thought she wanted. But John understood human nature, and in this case, Daisy had just turned her gotta-have-it shopping list from one man to another. “Next year, it’ll be someone else, beautiful, I promise.”
She reached out, lightly touching the Saint Michael medal under his denim shirt. “You and I both know about this medal. You got it from a peddler you met when you and your family were following the rodeo. He told you it would always protect you. All of you SEALs have one, but you and Cisco got yours switched overseas one day at training, and Suz thinks that tangled up something. She said it misplaced the Bridesmaids Creek magic, so that I thought Cisco was the man for me.” Daisy took a deep breath. “I’m not sure it happened that way. You’ve always been the only man for me. In fact, I know it in my heart. It just took me too long to see it. But I’m not going to beg you, John.” She smacked his chest, right over his heart, and his breath flew from him, his brain shot into outer space and that red corpuscle-driving organ that was trying to deny how much it cared for Daisy seemed to stop beating for just the space of a second. Peace and tranquillity descended upon John just as Daisy walked away from him to go introduce herself to his family—only to be replaced by red-hot lust and fiery passion engulfing his entire soul as he watched her walk away from him. It felt as if he were drowning in desire, as if his impulses were threatening to overtake his good sense. Aching to take back every word he’d said, he rubbed his chest where she’d lightly smacked his heart, willing himself to come back inside his body and be rational, damn it—but he had never really been rational where Daisy Donovan was concerned, and today was probably not going to be the day he started.
Bridesmaids Creek’s reach appeared to be long-ranging.
* * *
“I’M FINE,” DAISY said as she and Sam got back into his truck. “Thanks for driving me out here to find John’s knuckleheaded self.”
Sam laughed as he pulled onto the highway. “I told you he’d have his cabeza pretty well stuffed up his butt.”
“It’s a lot of my own fault.” Daisy sighed, resisting the urge to glance over her shoulder in the vain hope that John might have had second thoughts about sending her away and was even now charging after Sam’s truck. “I chased something I didn’t even want too long, and ignored the man who is right for me. I don’t blame him for not being entirely convinced that my heart belongs to him.”
“So now what?”
“Now,” Daisy said on a long breath, “hopefully, I enjoy a healthy pregnancy—”
“What?” Sam slammed on the brakes.
“Don’t you dare even think about turning around and going back.”
“But you didn’t tell him that! I know you didn’t! John would never have let you go if he knew you were pregnant! Are you really expecting a baby?”
“Keep driving,” Daisy said in a toneless command. “Yes, I’m expecting a baby.”
“Holy crap!” Sam turned the air conditioner on full blast, though the day was chilly and overcast. “Listen, you’re going to get me in a whole lot of caca with one John Lopez Mathison. If he finds out that I knew—”
“It’s all right, Sam. John’s made his choice. I’m not using a baby to change his mind. Absolutely not. And if you tell him,” Daisy said, staring at him, “I’ll set the matchmakers in town on you.”
The gentle bear of a man literally developed a peaked cast under his skin. “You wouldn’t!”
“I would.”
“I don’t want a woman! I don’t want a bride. Everyone has long known that I came along with John and Cisco just for the ride. Just to cause trouble, really.”
“I’m aware.” Daisy nodded. “But troublemakers sometimes find trouble.”
He pulled off a ramp and parked in a deserted parking lot that appeared to once have housed shops, but was now long abandoned. “Daisy, listen. When Ty Spurlock invited us to BC to find brides, I made it clear that was for everyone but me. I made a deal, in fact, with Cosette that she leave me out of any sprinklings from her magic wand.” He mopped his brow with a blue bandanna. “I’m everybody’s friend and nobody’s fellow, you see what I mean?”
She shrugged. “All you have to do is keep your lips sealed very tightly, Sam. If I’m going to catch John, I don’t need you bringing him back home when he thinks he needs to be free.”
He gulped, his brown eyes rolling nervously. “I don’t want to agree to this, but I’ve seen the BC magic at work, and it’s potent stuff.”
“When applied correctly, yes, it is. Don’t think for one minute that I couldn’t convince Cosette that you’re just talking big, Sam Barr, and like every other man claiming you don’t want a woman. It wouldn’t be hard to convince Cosette that settling the mischief-maker of BC down would be a pièce de résistance for her magic wand.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath. “Excuse me,” he said, and got out of the truck. Reached into the double cab to pull a handful of ice from the cooler, wrapped it inside his blue bandanna and stuck it against his forehead. “He’s going to know, Daisy. Someone will tell him.”
“I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it. But he can’t know, not yet. He will know eventually,” Daisy said. “You’re going to have to give me time.”
He nodded. “I know. I get it. I totally understand. You don’t know John like I do, and he’s superstitious as hell. You learn these things about a man in a war zone.”
“Superstitious?”
“Yeah. He really bought into all that BC charm and nonsense.”
“Nonsense!” Daisy sat up. “BC makes its living on that nonsense, and though I may be late to understanding it, I certainly endorse anything that fiscally benefits our town!”
Sam got back in the front seat, handing her a water bottle and cracking one open for himself. “Whatever happened up in Montana really changed you, Daisy. I don’t know what potion Branch Winters poured over you, but it’s a humdinger.”
Daisy shook her head. “I fell in love,” she said softly. “Branch helped me see the path, but the fact is, I’ve been in love with John for a long time. I was much too invested in my own pride to see it. And now I’m going to have to earn his, and the town’s, trust. I’m willing to do that, but it’s going to take time, which I won’t have if you go bumping your gums all over BC.”
“They’ll know as soon as you start showing.” He cast an aggrieved glance at her tummy.
“I have time.” At least she hoped so.
Sam shook his head, glanced up at the roof of the truck. “Daisy Donovan, I’m only going to say this once because my whole body is going to go into shock, but there’s only one way to bring my buddy back home, and to his senses, even.”
“I’ll happily take any advice you can give me.” She meant every word, too. Earning John’s trust wasn’t going to be easy—she’d made quite a mess of things, and Daisy didn’t need Sam, or Cosette or anybody else in town to spell that out for her.
“You’re going to have to let me put a ring on your finger,” Sam said, before passing out and falling over like a giant bear with its cotton stuffing pulled out.
She patted his face urgently. “Sam! Don’t be a schmuck, I’m not marrying you!” Grabbing the cold bandanna, she wiped it over his face, shrieking when John knocked on the driver’s-side window.
“John!”
He pulled open the door. “What the hell is going on?”
“Sam fainted!” She patted his face some more, willing color back into the dark skin. “He proposed to me, and then he—”
“What?” John helped her lay Sam across the seat and Daisy got out of the truck to make room. She worked on Sam at one end of the cab, and John worked on Sam from the driver’s side. “You’re gone five minutes and work a proposal out of Handsome Sam? Wake up, buddy,” he said, touching cold water to Sam’s face, “so I can knock you back out again!”
* * *
SAM CAME TO—finally!—and John breathed a sigh of relief. “Helluva a beauty nap you took there, buddy.”
“What can I say? I need my forty winks.” Sam sat up, glanced over at Daisy, whose face looked tragically concerned for Sam. “But I’m doing fine. This sexy, amazing woman has just agreed to—”
“Yeah, yeah.” John helped his friend none too gently to sit up. “You big faker.”
“Faker!” Sam looked outraged, any trace of the fallout he’d had gone for good. “I’m not faking anything!”
“Oh, you’re a faker all right.” John glared at the man whose back he’d had in Afghanistan, and vice versa. “Yelling at the top of your lungs that you want nothing to do with marriage, and the second I turn my back, you go and get—”
“What does your back have to do with anything?” Sam demanded.
“I’d like to know that myself.” Daisy’s concern turned to annoyance. “And what are you doing here, anyway? Last I saw you, you were heading north.”
“I am heading north.” He could barely meet Daisy’s gaze. The truth was, his good sense had evaporated once he’d realized he was an epic dunce for letting her get away. He’d hopped into his truck and followed, not sure why, his heart driving him like a mad man. “You shouldn’t have to drive all the way back to Bridesmaids Creek with Handsome Sam here. The least I can do is offer to fly you back. However, I had no idea that you and Sam—”
“Yep,” Sam said, coming out of his coma ever more strongly by the second. He thumped his chest with pride. “Offer me the cup of congratulations, old buddy, old pal, I’m getting married.”
“So you claimed.”
John glanced at Daisy, but she didn’t deny Sam’s astonishing brag. Everyone knew that Sam was the last man on earth—the very last of any tribe, clan, or nationality—who would ever marry. Daisy gazed at him steadily, not appearing to be preparing to open her sumptuous, delightful lips for any sort of rebuttal, and John’s heart fell to the ground, rolled around in the dust of the parking lot, then gave up the ghost.
“In fact, I’m having a baby,” Sam said cheerfully, and the ghost of John’s heart not only gave up, it poofed into nothingness. He felt cold all over, then hot, then drained. “We’re having a baby.”
“A baby?”
“It appears I’m going to be a father.” Sam shook his head. “An astonishing thing, no?”
“Very.” John raised a brow. “Let me get this straight. Daisy came after me, but you wanted her for yourself, and so you offered to drive her—”
“Just so.” Sam nodded. John glanced to Daisy, who merely shrugged.
He stepped back from his friend, trying to piece all this together. Everyone knew Sam was a trickster beyond compare—if Shakespeare had still been alive, he could have written plays about this wizard of wackiness—but marriage? A baby?
John shook his head. “You two are fibbing through your teeth, but I’m darned if I know why.”
Daisy didn’t say anything, and Sam kept very still, like he was one breath short of hyperventilating again. John sighed. “Are you really this fickle? Or are you trying to make a point? Because I wouldn’t put it past either one of you.”
“What difference does it make to you?” Daisy asked.
“None.” It meant every difference. He’d waited years for Daisy to come to her senses and realize he was the man of her dreams. Then, when she had come to her senses, he’d lost every one of his, apparently. Maybe lust had fried his brain. “Anyway, if you’re content to ride home with my loose-marbled friend here, that’s fine. I just wanted you to know that you could go by plane, too.”
“You couldn’t call to make your generous offer?” Daisy looked at him, and he thought she wasn’t buying his cover story.
“I could have, but it seemed best to inquire in person.” He looked at Sam. “My friend here means a lot to me. I know he was trying to do me a favor by bringing you after me.”
“Really?” Daisy put a hand on a slim hip. “A favor? Does Sam truck women after you often, then?”
“Not at all. Which is why I felt the occasion merited the personal treatment.”
“Well, thank you so much.”
Daisy didn’t sound very grateful. In fact, he thought he’d detected a tiny undertone of snark. He looked at her. “A baby? You two expect me to buy that you’re having a baby?” He cast a gaze at her very flat stomach, with which he was intimately familiar, having spent hours kissing that very toned, very delectable flesh. “Something’s off about this whole story.”
It was indeed off. He’d used condoms with Daisy. She’d been very fine with that, in fact, one might even have said helpful, a foreplay which had stretched his manly capabilities to the max. John practically got stiff thinking about it. “A baby,” he repeated. “I just don’t think you have it in you, old man.”
“What?” Sam squawked, sitting straight up with indignation. “I think I can handle parenthood just fine, thanks.”
John shook his head. There was an alternate reality in here, he knew there was, but these two were thick as thieves about something. He looked at both of them, and then it hit him: his buddy was attempting to paint a bull’s-eye on him with one of his infamous pranks.
Yes, Handsome Sam Barr was trying to pull a fast one.
And the only way to neutralize having a bull’s-eye painted on one’s hindquarters was to pull a faster one.
“You know,” John said, “as I recall, Vegas is only a couple hours from here. Probably quite doable as a wedding destination in one day, considering how you like to apply your boot to the pedal.”
Sam nodded vigorously. “We should be able to make it by nightfall for a romantic destination.”
John looked at Daisy. “I wish you two well.”
Daisy nodded, but she seemed uncertain. “Thank you.”
“All right, then.” Taking a deep breath, John got into the double cab, seating himself behind Sam and Daisy, and belted himself in with a grin.
Chapter Four (#ua01bbaba-c527-59ec-90c5-d961eb3ffb97)
“What are you doing?” Daisy turned to meet John’s mischievous gaze.
“I’m riding with you to Vegas.” He put his hands behind his head, looking very comfortable and even pleased with himself.
Daisy frowned. “Why?”
He clapped Sam on the shoulder. “I can’t let my buddy get married without a best man. And I am the best man. You may not know this about Sam and me, but we’ve seen some very dark days. Together, we survived.”
Daisy glanced at Sam. He shrugged, and she thought she saw a little what-can-we-do? in his expressive eyes.
“We are best friends,” Sam said.
Daisy turned to stare out the window. “I don’t care.”
“You don’t mind if he tags along?” Sam asked.
“Hey! I prefer to think of myself less as a tagalonger and more as part of the wedding party.”
Daisy didn’t turn to look at John to sanction this silly statement. She was well aware he was taking Sam’s role of being a trickster, but she wasn’t going to be the one to cry “uncle.” If these two wanted to play chicken, it was probably a game they’d played before. “I don’t care one bit.”
Sam turned to glare at John. “You can’t cause any trouble.”
“Me?” John feigned surprise and innocence. “I never cause trouble.”
“Never cause trouble,” Sam muttered under his breath, starting the truck, and Daisy wondered how this situation was going to end up by nightfall. John appeared determined to call Sam’s bluff, so there was a great possibility that Sam might find himself at the altar saying “I do,” something he’d always proclaimed he would never do.
Until today.
This was terrible. With John sitting in the backseat goading his friend on, Sam might not feel as if he could bow out. Sam had just been trying to bring John to his senses—but like other plans in Bridesmaids Creek had been known to go, this one appeared to have taken a turn for the worse.
I don’t even need anyone to marry me.
With the two men dug in for the long haul, apparently, Daisy decided she might as well take a nap. Pretend to take one, anyway—as if she could ignore John’s long, lean body in the backseat. She could feel his gaze on her, studying her. Waiting to see if she’d crack.
The man really believed she was so hung up on him that he could haul out of town without saying goodbye—then show back up in her life and throw the equivalent of a cold, wet water balloon to explode her plans.
Ass.
“I’m sorry, pumpkin, did you say something?” Sam asked, clearly intending to play the This Is Chicken and I’m Not Gonna Lose scenario to its incongruous end. “It sounded like you said ass.”
Daisy shook her head, kept her eyes closed. “I didn’t say ass.”
“I thought I heard her say ass,” John said, putting his two cents in from the backseat.
“Guys, leave me out of the rooster-like posturing, please,” she said, and they had the nerve to guffaw.
“Daisy, lady, you’re far too much for my gentle friend to handle,” John said.
“And yet he’s handling me just fine,” Daisy said, and that shut John up for the space of five blissful minutes.
Of course, John had to start fielding calls on his cell phone. From the backseat, she could hear him gossiping about today’s wedding plans. He told everyone who called that she and Sam were running off—which of course brought on a flurry of phone calls, all of which John seemed pleased to discuss in laborious detail. Daisy’s nerves were stretched tight, and Sam looked positively unlike himself.
Handsome Sam had turned into a shadow of his former devil-may-care self.
Daisy was relieved when Sam finally pulled up in Vegas. He’d found a quaint little chapel, a white incongruous place that didn’t shout Elvis.
“I’ll take the groom in and tidy him up,” John said jovially, and Daisy snapped, “Fine.”
“Ooh, bridal nerves,” John whispered to Sam, but he made sure his whisper carried. “I think she’s got ’em bad!”
She was going to clock John Lopez Mathison a good one if he didn’t take his annoying self far from her. A delicate, elderly woman approached. “You must be the bride.”
“Not today,” Daisy said. “I’ll give you five hundred dollars if you sneak me out of here and keep those two hunky cowboys I came in with busy long enough for me to get to the nearest airport.”
* * *
KNOWING THE FIRST place Sam and John would look for her was Bridesmaids Creek or Branch Winters’s place in Montana, Daisy took herself somewhere she knew she was totally safe. She went to New York, waited a day for her father to overnight her passport, and flew out to Australia, where Robert Donovan had recently purchased properties. It was a great excuse to check out the real estate, which made her father happy, but most of all, it gave Daisy time to think through her situation.
For a girl who loved riding fast on her motorcycle, her life had become way too fast-paced. She was going to be a mother. It was time to sit and think, figure out what she was going to do. Here she was completely safe from the game-playing duo of John and Sam.
She put a hand on her stomach as she looked out over the Sydney skyline. John had never suspected the baby was his—which had annoyed the heck out of her, but they’d been completely faithful about using condoms, so she guessed she could understand why he might assume the baby was Sam’s.
Then again, he was still an ass. She might have been wild, but she’d never been promiscuous, and John knew that. Part of her wondered if Sam would tell him the truth—but one never knew with Sam. He marched to the beat of his own unseen drummer, one that played a tune no one could predict.
It would all work out. She had to believe that. To think otherwise would mean giving up on the BC magic—something she would never do. Her father owned buildings around the world; she could live anywhere she liked. But Bridesmaids Creek was home.
And that’s where her baby would be born.
She just needed to let the smoke clear. Once John and Sam cooled their jets, she’d return.
It was time to make up for her part in the problems in BC—and she’d never been a girl to back down from what she knew had to be done.
She couldn’t wait to get started.
* * *
“THAT’S THE FUNNIEST story I ever heard!” Sheriff Dennis slapped his thigh, causing the biggest frown he could muster to crease John’s face. Cosette Lafleur and Jane Chatham didn’t appear to be any less amused by the tale of Daisy ditching both him and Sam at the altar, so this was just one more BC legend John was going to have to live down.
He didn’t mind admitting that he didn’t understand Daisy. He prided himself on being able to catch anything that moved on the planet—anything. He’d been an excellent sniper—hence Squint, short for Squint-Eye—he’d been proud to protect his fellow countrymen. He had no trouble bagging any kind of game, and horseshoes and hand grenades were right up his tree of fun.
But the sexy brunette with the key to his soul—she confounded him. Eluded him, and stunned him. He’d had every intention of making her go all the way up to the altar with Sam, for the sheer pleasure of watching her back out at the last second.
Oh, she’d backed out big-time. They were lucky she hadn’t taken the truck and stranded them in Sin City.
One day he’d have to thank her for not doing that. He couldn’t really have blamed her if she had.
The worst part was nobody knew where she’d gone—or if they did, they sure as heck weren’t telling. John sent a sour look to his booth mates at The Wedding Diner.
“One of you has to know something. She couldn’t have just disappeared.”
The three haphazard matchmakers shook their collective heads in the negative.
“You won’t find her, wherever she went,” Cosette said. “Robert’s got ventures all around the world. Last I heard, he’d bought up something in Shanghai.” She frowned. “Or maybe it was Bangkok.”
John tipped his hat back. “It’s all my fault, anyway. If she wants peace and quiet, she should get all she wants.”
“Your fault?” Dennis asked.
“Yeah. I pushed her.” He sighed. “Sam’s mad as the dickens at me, too. He said I was being a louse, and that he was doing his very best to get me moving.”
“To be fair, Daisy never gave you a whole lot of encouragement until lately.”
“I wish I could use that as an excuse, but I can’t.” Since she’d seduced him in Montana—or had he seduced her?—it had all happened so fast and seemed so beneficially organic.
“It’s funny how we used to call her the Diva of Destruction.” Sheriff Dennis laughed. “That seems a long time ago now.”
Daisy was still a diva to him—the Diva of Delights. They couldn’t understand how mad he was about her, had been from the moment he’d laid eyes on her zooming around on her motorcycle.
“Patience has never been a virtue of mine.”
They laughed. “Nor ours,” Cosette said.
“In the meantime,” Jane said, “you can be our fall guy. Just until Daisy gets back. She will come back one day, you know.”
“Fall guy?” He perked up. This sounded distinctly dangerous. One didn’t sign up to be a fall guy in Bridesmaids Creek willy-nilly. This crew could think up some wingdingers.
Jane nodded. “We need you to find out whose baby Daisy is having. We must be prepared.”
The blood left John’s head. “Whose baby?” He couldn’t bear thinking about it. “I thought they were just making up that tale.”
The ladies looked at him, concerned. “Daisy’s really expecting,” Jane said.
He sat dumbfounded, shell-shocked.
After a moment, Jane sighed and went on. “Well, it’s clear Daisy thinks she’s going to do this all on her own. She’s just that kind of independent woman. Goodness knows she doesn’t need a man for financial reasons.” Jane shook her head. “If that’s not your baby—”
“I’m afraid not.” His ears were ringing, to go with the light-headedness assailing him. He couldn’t bear to think of Daisy even kissing another man, much less having a baby! “Do you have anything stronger than tea, Jane?”
The three gentle folk looked at him with grave concern.
“I keep some whiskey in the back for after hours,” Jane whispered. “On occasion, our close-knit group likes to sit in one of the circular booths and enjoy a small tipple.”
“I could use a small tipple.” John couldn’t imagine Daisy being held in another man’s arms. Oh, Sam had tried to make him jealous, but no one was jealous of Handsome Sam.
But he hadn’t thought through the fact that Daisy might be with child by another man.
“We’re wondering if Branch Winters did more than reroute Daisy’s brain,” Dennis said, and cold and hot swamped John in nauseating waves. “Something happened up there, something big.”
“He changed her,” Cosette said. “We’re wondering if perhaps Daisy might have fallen for—”
“I can’t,” John said. He leaned back in the booth, and when Jane put the “tipple” in front of him in a sweetly painted tea cup to disguise its contents from the other patrons, John knocked it back without hesitation.
“Easy there, sailor,” Dennis said. “It’ll be closing time soon. I’ll take you to my place and we’ll cauterize your brain for a bit. Or maybe Phillipe’s place for some yoga. I’m really getting into that yoga crap Phillipe’s got going on, Cosette. Do you do it?”
“I do, and I’m getting so flexible! Who would have ever thought my husband would become a yogi of sorts?” Cosette looked pleased, and John noticed that she didn’t refer to Phillipe as her ex-husband. Maybe matters were looking up for them. He sure hoped so.
“I’ll pass on the yoga.” After their divorce, Phillipe had moved into a small house, and outfitted it with hanging beads and floor cushions for the yoga practice he’d started. It looked like a regular hangout for hippies, which had caught them all off guard because Phillipe and Cosette were anything but the hippie type.
Cosette picked up the delicate floral teapot and poured some more amber liquid into his cup. “You look like you could use another smidge of whiskey.”
“And all this time I thought you sat in this booth and drank tea.” John shook his head.
“We do!” Jane glanced at her friends. “But on occasion, like right now, something with a little oomph is required. Now, if you’re feeling fortified, let’s get back to the topic at hand, which is Daisy.”
He froze up again. “I can’t be the fall guy. I can’t even think about it.” He swallowed hard. “Anyway, isn’t it her business who the father of her child might be?”
“Maybe,” Dennis said, “unless the father lives in Montana or something.”
Crap. He could see where they were going with this. Daisy Donovan might just have allowed herself, in a moment of heartbreak and confusion, to be seduced. The cold chills he’d suffered a moment ago came back with a vengeance, despite the whiskey he’d quaffed out of the eggshell-thin teacup.
She might not ever return to Bridesmaids Creek.
“I suppose you’re absolutely certain, one hundred percent sure that the baby couldn’t possibly be yours...not that we’re trying to pry?” Jane asked gently.
He read between those lines. “Oh, you’re dying to pry, but I know you mean well.” He took a long, deep breath. “I suppose the way things work in BC, I can’t entirely count out the remote, infinitesimal poss—”
“I knew it!” Cosette clapped her hands.
Jane beamed. She made another pour out of the teapot for the entire table, making sure John’s went clean to the rim of his cup. “This calls for a celebration!”
“Now wait,” John said. “I was going to say that Daisy’s baby being mine would be something on the order of a miraculous—”
They all looked at him, their faces gleaming as his words drifted away. Each of them looked so pleased he couldn’t bear to let them down.
“You have to understand, you’d be better off looking for another bachelor,” John said. “I’m not your man.”
“He may be right,” Jane said thoughtfully. “I don’t know that I’m feeling it.”
Dennis wore the same suddenly thoughtful look. “And then there’s the matter of Sam. I still can’t figure out how he got into this.”
John didn’t want to hear about Handsome Sam. “Trust me, my buddy was just trying to help me get to the altar. It was all an elaborate sham to coax me there.”
“Most men don’t offer to marry a woman who’s having a child that isn’t theirs.” Cosette grew pensive now, too. “I mean, you’re not.”
His throat got a bit tight. “I haven’t really thought about—”
“The thing about Sam,” Dennis said, “is that he really is an ultimate bachelor with a golden heart. Someone should hook him.”
John shook his head. “You’ll never catch Sam.”
“But he was taking her to Vegas,” Jane said. “That gives me pause about this bachelor song he sings.”
A little doubt crept into John. “Sam’s just up to his usual tricks. We all suffer from it. And love him for it, too,” he said truthfully.
“Well,” Cosette said brightly, “I suppose it doesn’t matter whether you’re in love with Daisy. She’s not here, and who knows when she’ll come home after the shock she’s suffered.”
“Wait a minute.” John’s brain whirred like a pinwheel. Which fallacy should he start with—that he was in love with Daisy, or that she might never return? This was BC: she had to return. “I’m not in love with Daisy.”
The second the words left his mouth, causing glints of mirth and knowing to shine in his friends’ eyes, John knew—just as they knew—that he was head over heels, gone-and-not-coming-back, certifiably in love with Daisy Donovan.
“Oh, crap,” he said, and they high-fived each other, and then him, for good measure.
This was a problem. He was now squarely in BC’s sights, and the worst part was, he had no clue where Daisy was, and if that was his child she was carrying.
Holy smoke.
Chapter Five (#ulink_8b249aeb-bbf2-5a34-bd91-fe6034bb704e)
“And that’s that,” John told Daisy’s gang. “You lot are going to help me make this right. And if that’s not high irony, I don’t know what is.”
Daisy’s gang of five, seated in their new man cave, shook their lunkheads. “We can’t help you,” Dig said.
“No aid to the enemy,” Red said.
“She’s our girl,” Clint said, “even if she didn’t choose one of us.”
“We don’t see what a great girl like her would see in a squid like you,” Carson said.
“And we haven’t given up hope,” Gabriel said. “We’re not helping any Handsome Sams, Squints or Frogs. Where do you guys get these names, anyway?”
So he was sitting square in enemy camp, with conspirators unwilling to be his wingmen in his hunt to find Daisy. “Listen, Daisy’s having a baby, and she’s going to need our help.”
“Our help,” Red said. “Not necessarily your help.”
“Unless you’re the father,” Carson said, “and we don’t see that being the case.”
John shrugged. “Of course I’m the father. Who else do you think it would be?” Here he was fibbing just a bit because he didn’t know for sure, but in the night, he’d ruminated over what his friends had said to him at The Wedding Diner and realized it really didn’t matter who the father of Daisy’s baby was. He was in love with her, and he’d be a good father, a dad to her child.
As far as John was concerned, that made it case closed for his suit.
They glared at him, not believing him.
“Daisy would have told us,” Clint said. “We’ve got our money on it being that fellow up in Montana. The airy-fairy one who lives in the wild and communes with nature and all that crapola.”
John laughed. “Branch would get a real charge out of hearing himself described that way.”
“So?” Carson demanded. “How do you know Daisy’s not with him?”
“Because she’s not. And we need to find her, fellows.”
“Again,” Dig said, “we need to find her. There’s no you and us in this situation. We’ve known her since she was three years old, and we don’t need any outside help rescuing her from what was clearly an unfortunate decision on her part.”
“That’s too bad.” John leaned back in one of the leather chairs, glanced around the man cave. “It’d be good for your new business to showcase your first success as date makers.”
“You’re not one of our clients,” Red said.
“Because you don’t have any yet,” John said, pointing out the obvious. “If you’re going to be the premier dating service and cigar bar,” he said, glancing with doubt toward the leather-wrapped cigar bar and wooden walls that shouted man cave, in complete opposition to the idea of being a dating service, “you need a high-profile client to highlight what you can do. And that’s me.”
They gawked at him. John could hear the wheels turning.
“He’s right,” Clint said reluctantly.
“Never say that an out-of-towner is right,” Carson said, his words hushed.
“Nevertheless, he has a point,” Dig said, his voice stunned.
“At least it’s not Handsome Sam,” Gabriel said. “I think I can stand anything but giving our girl up to a man with a handle like that!”
* * *
THE SIX MEN got out of the two trucks, warily eyeing the Donovan compound.
“Well,” Dig said to John as they stared at the massive two-story gray edifice, “here’s the yellow brick road. And while you might want us to play your Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Toto and—”
“I’m not playing Dorothy,” Red said, “no cracks about my hair or anything.”
They gazed at his long red mop for a second. John didn’t think there was a man on earth he’d rather deem Dorothy less than Red. The man had arm muscles that looked like a bear’s.
“Cowardly Lion, Tin Man, Scarecrow, Toto and a flying monkey,” Dig said, his tone impatient with his friend.
“Okay, I can go with a flying monkey. They were kind of cool,” Red said, but they ignored him and went back to staring at the house where Daisy lived, and thus, her warlock of a father.
John shook his head. “I really don’t know if this is the right plan, fellows.”
“Well, you came to us for help, need I remind you?” Carson said. “And this is how we suggest you help yourself. You’re going to have to man up and ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage.”
“What?” John said, and Daisy’s gang favored him with narrow gazes.
“That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Gabriel demanded.
“I was going to start small,” John said, “like maybe let Robert Donovan know that I’d like to find his daughter.”
They shook their heads.
“Here’s the problem,” Clint said. “We have it on good authority that Donovan doesn’t know his little angel is expecting his grandchild.”
“That can’t be possible. This is BC,” John said. “Everybody knows everything about everybody, and if they don’t, it’s because they’ve buried themselves deep under a rock.”
“And just who do you think would tell Mr. Donovan that his daughter is in the family way?” Dig asked, staring at him. “Don’t you think he’d have had a word or two with the man he thought had knocked up his daughter and left her high and dry?”
“You being that fellow and all,” Red said, “now that the truth has come out.”
“No truth has come out!” John said, but he was beginning to wonder himself. He’d asked Sam, but Sam had denied knowing who the father of Daisy’s baby was. Swore up and down that he didn’t care, either. If Daisy needed a husband, then Sam Barr was more than happy to be that husband.
Jealousy had practically eaten a hole in John’s cool, calm persona—and Sam knew it. Enjoyed it, even.
“But admit it, you’re beginning to think you’re going to be shopping for blue or pink in the very near future,” Clint said, and John’s breath hitched.
“It’s actually a pretty appealing idea,” he said, and they clapped him on the back in the nearest sign of camaraderie he’d experienced from them. “Hey! You’re trying to get me to go up there, spill the beans—which are Daisy’s beans to spill, by the way—and get my head pounded down my neck!”
They guffawed, just a bunch of knuckleheads having a great day, more than happy to add him to their group for the moment because it made them a whole half-dozen cars on the crazy train for a change.
“Aw, Donovan’s not going to pound your head,” Dig said. “Nobody’s afraid of Daddy Warbucks anymore. But you are going to get the speech about how you’re not worthy of his adorable daughter, and how he ought to bury you under Best Man’s Fork where no one can find your remains for knocking up his baby girl, and that if you think you’re going to get one penny of his dough you’re crazier than a bedbug.”
“Well, when you put it that way, how can I resist?” John asked, not that worried about Donovan, anyway. A security truck pulled up, with Donovan riding shotgun to see who was trespassing on his holy land, and the five dummkopfs scattered in their truck.
“What brings you to my humble abode, Squint?” Donovan demanded as the dust plume rose from John’s newfound friends’ hauling asses.
“It’s John now, Robert. And I’d like a moment of your time,” John said, and the man narrowed his eyes at him.
It wasn’t a stare most people would like to receive, but John had seen a lot worse. He shrugged. “If you have time, that is. Sir.”
Just like his military days, he knew when to apply the courtesy treatment. Robert perked up.
“I might spare you five minutes. Start talking.”
“Actually, what I’ve come to say is private.” John glanced at the armed guards and the driver, who was no doubt packing as well, with a shrug. “Regarding family business.”
Robert grumbled a bit. “I suppose you want to be invited in.”
John shrugged again.
“Those five wienies who just hit the road have never darkened the doors of my house. Why would I let you in?”
“I can talk out in the fresh air just as well as inside four walls, Robert. I’m just asking for you to hear me out in private.”
After a moment, Robert got out. His men drove away. “So, you’ve come to find out where my daughter is. She said you would.”
“I’m glad she knows me so well.”
“Harrumph!”
“Look, Robert, I happen to think an awful lot of your daughter, and—”
“Son, let me stop you.” Robert drew himself up to his full six feet four and glared. “I know where you come from, I know about your family. What do you imagine you can possibly offer my daughter?”
John ignored that, took a deep breath and then the plunge. “There’s a very good chance Daisy may be having my baby. I need to find her.”
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